Are You A Baby Boomer Thinking Of Starting A Business?

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WWR Article Summary (tl;dr) Richard J. “Rick” Anthony Sr. has launched a unique course called “Roadrunner50Plus” — a gut-check program designed to keep the wrong people from taking the entrepreneurial plunge.

Philly.com

The youngest baby boomers are now in their 50s; the oldest, their 70s.

Aside from perhaps a problem knee or moments of temporary memory mush, what other peril could be ahead?

Entrepreneurship, says Richard J. “Rick” Anthony Sr.

“I know of too many instances where older adults had an idea, a dream, a passion, committed their own personal resources, their pension plans, their IRAs, their personal savings, and had made mistakes that could have been avoided if they had somebody at the outset advising them,” Anthony said.

He has launched Roadrunner50Plus — a gut-check program designed to keep the wrong people from taking the entrepreneurial plunge.

Nothing like it exists in the region, where those in the entrepreneurial community say it is needed.

“Most of these guys come from corporate life and they really don’t understand what it takes to do a start-up,” said Marc Kramer, executive director of Philadelphia’s Angel Venture Fair, the oldest and largest gathering of angel investors and entrepreneurs in the Mid-Atlantic region, and an executive in residence at St. Joseph University’s Haub School of Business.

Anthony heard similar feedback on a recent morning at Overbrook Country Club in Villanova at an event for more seasoned entrepreneurs — a networking breakfast of The Entrepreneurs Network (TEN), a series of five meetings a year he has been holding for 17 years. Anthony founded TEN before the region even had a thriving start-up scene, back when incubators were more commonly known as protective vessels for premature babies than as hatcheries for new businesses.